Masculine card with sponging

Another masculine card for my brother!!  He lives in northern BC and I am sure he regularly sees the Northern Lights.  I tried to make the sponging look like them but it was not as effective as I would have liked.  I laser printed the dog sled image (CLKER) on white cardstock, cut it to size and sponged on several colours of purple and blue using the torn edge of a piece of bond to create the layers on the background.  I added a black layer and adhered it to a white card front on which I had already printed the greeting.  I added some coordinating fiber and a layered snowflake accent.

Therese

Masculine birthday card

I have a few early January birthdays and so I am working on getting those out on time this year!! Here is the card I made for my nephew!!
I started with a beautiful stamped image of the light house which I received in a swap a while back and watercoloured it.  I added a layer of handmade paper which coordinated, some flag ended pieces of ribbon and sewed them all in place with black thread in my sewing machine.  I layered a colour printed greeting with red and attached it with 3D foam tape.
Really happy with how it turned out!!

Therese

Dragon scale necklace

A dragon scale necklace I created for my grand daughter for Christmas!!  She was reading a dragon book earlier this year and I thought she would enjoy a reminder of the experience.  I cut the scales out of shrink plastic, punched the holes and then coloured them with alcohol inks. I love the wonderful variations I was able to get.  I shrunk them with my heat gun and shaped them over a metal teaspoon (old to be used for crafts only) while they were hot!!  I attached them to a silver chain using split rings and attached a little heart charm on the back which I signed on the inside.
It turned out better than I imagined!!

Therese

Gift Card holders!!

On one of my groups I signed up for a gift card holder swap - perfect for those last minute gifts for those hard to buy for people!! This one's theme was snowflakes/snowmen and required that we use a toilet paper roll as the base.  This was a fun swap!!
I flattened the toilet paper rolls but they are really springy!!  Had I known, I would have flattened them a month ago when I set them aside.  I am pressing them now but that means they will be a day late starting their journey to my swap partner.
For the right hand one, I used a piece of decorative paper about six inches long and wide enough to cover the base.  I sewed brown fabric trim to the bottom which in the process created the bottom of my holder.  I added a couple of snowflake punchies to a embossed handmade paper snowman paper cast using a brown brad. I used hot glue to adhere this dimensional element to the front of the holder.  I cut a tag that fit inside the holder from blue textured cardstock and sewed the same brown fabric trim to the top of it.  I have the tag out a bit on the photo - properly seated, the fabric embellishment tucks perfectly to the top of the holder.  I added a length of double sided tape to the tag so the gift card can be adhered to the tag and then inserted out of sight into the holder.
For the left hand one, I used a piece of decorative paper about 6" long and a bit wider to cover the base.  I used a label punch (SU) to punch a shape from coordinating paper and finished it off with a colour printed greeting punchie and several small snowflake punchies adhered with silver mini brads.  I adhered this element to the front using hot glue.  I created a coordinating cardstock tag for the inside, added a teal label punchie to the corner rounded top edge and punched a hole in which I threaded some white seam binding.  Really happy with the look of both of my gift card holders and it is a bonus that the base is reused!!
Hope you are well on your way to being ready for Christmas!!  We are here!!  The real tree comes in tomorrow to thaw and will be decorated on Wednesday!!  That is when the season starts for us!!  If you are not ready for Christmas, be kind to yourself and let go of as many things as you can so you can enjoy the season!!

Therese

Hostess Gift - pancake syrup

I am just getting ready some hostess gifts for the upcoming holiday season!!   I made up several of these little jars of high bush cranberry pancake syrup in the early fall and put them in the freezer.  We are invited out to a neighbour's for tea this afternoon and I decided to dress this one up to take along.
I cut a 4+ inch scallop circle (SU) out of glitter felt and tied it onto the top of the jar using white cording.  I added a scalloped tag which I colour printed and then punched out using the SU scallop punch.  I printed a full sheet of these tags and added the date by hand with a red gel pen so that I can use them in the future.
This pancake syrup is made from cranberries which I picked locally.  My Mom and Dad have been picking the wild variety for years to make syrup. Mine is a little darker than theirs but the taste is very close to the same. My favorite is to have it on crepes (french pancakes) with a little bit of cream.  We will be treating ourselves over the holidays!!

Therese

My little book pendant!

Here is a close up of my little book pendant!!  I added a heart charm to mine because hearts are my favorite thing!!  It was fun to create little danglies for each one of them!!

You check here to see the details of how these little book pendants were made!!

Therese

Book pendants

I am involved in a 12 Days of Christmas giftie swap on one of my groups and decided to create little book pendants for each of my swap partners!  I have been wanting to make some of these for quite some time and finally decided that now was the time.  I did quite a bit of internet research to see what others were doing and finally settled on making a real book - covers with a spine with accordion pages bound into it.  Here you can see the beginnings of my cover.  Two squares and a long rectangle for my spine of light weight chipboard laying on my handmade decorative paper.

Here you can see the chipboard pieces covered with the decorative paper (faux leather) and an extra strip added in the middle over the spine to create a bit of interest in the final book design.  I glued these pieces down with glue stick and pressed them to make sure every thing was well adhered.

After I had made all the covers and they had been pressed over night I added a 1/8" eyelet in a coordinating colour at the top of the spine.  This will be used to attach the book to the string using a jump ring.

Next I created all the accordion folded pages for the books.  I measured the inside dimension of my cover and cut the strips appropriately and folded them using mountain and valley folds.  I glued two strips together to made enough pages to fit in each book. I see that I have my cover sitting up side down in the photo.  The eyelet should be at the top!!

Here are all the pieces I needed to finish up the books.  I used a small piece of plastic canvas to bind my pages into a signature using coordinating thread to bind them.  I used a fairly slim needle and regular sewing thread (doubled) to sew my pages.

Here is a close up of how I bound the pages to the canvas.  I drew the thread up through a hole in the canvas, went across one of the valley folds and down through a hole on the other side.  Up again, through the same hole in the canvas and across the next valley fold and down the same hole on the other side.  There were three holes across the canvas so I just distributed the valley folds among them.  Once the pages were bound to the canvas, I added a jump ring to the eyelet and hot glued the signature into the cover.   I added the tie - a short piece of string and a bead to the covers and glued my end pages to the inside covers.  That completed the books.  I added a few danglies - a key and beaded charm to each of them to give them some character and make them unique!!

Here is a photo of all little book pendants I made!!!

They were really fun to make though a bit time consuming as I was inventing them as I was going along!!  I really enjoyed making them all different and using some of my hand decorated paper which made them unique!!  I am really glad I added some colour to the spines because that makes them look more like real books.
The recipients will be able to add to them any thing they wish - a favorite quote, a current affirmation, a poem they have written or even small photos or artwork to make them their own!!

We start our gift opening today!!  I had Day 1, so by now everyone will have opened their little gifts from me.

I made a few extras so will be having a give way!!
Check out this blog post for the details!!

Therese

Gifts of Imperfection - Gratitude

I am a bit behind in my Brene Brown course - The Gifts of Imperfection!!  Here is my double page spread on gratitude!!  We had to take pictures of everyday things that brought us joy!!  It is should a good way to remind us of the joy there is in every single day!!  I simply printed my photos and wrote on my page the joy I received!!
We did learn that gratitude brings us joy so it is vital to practice gratitude every day to keep ourselves in the joyful flow of life.  Our acknowledgement of our blessings keeps them coming!
Brene referred to her little moments of joy as twinkling lights and I just loved that analogy!!
As Christmas draws near there are so many more twinkling lights in our world - let them remind you of your everyday moments of joy!!

Therese

Birthday card for Dad

This card is for my Dad whose birthday is today!!  I will see him tomorrow!!  So glad to be close enough to participate in the celebration!!
I started with a white card front and added the black layer that had been stamped in white with a love definition background (SU). I also trimmed it on the right hand side with a border punch and added a piece of dark blue seam binding over the edge of the writing.  I tied a shorter piece to the long piece with a single knot to simulate a bow.  I added the layered train image, a length of blue cardstock that was trimmed with pinking shears which I tucked under the seam binding and added a colour printed greeting using 3D foam tape.  I like the way that the pinked border echoes the border punched edge.  A fairly quick and easy card!!

Therese